Comments

There are many levels of delusional thinking that comprise the cultural heart of "civilization," the very thing Schell seems so desperate to save. There is the idea that you can somehow square the relentless expansionism of civilizations with justice. There is the idea that civilization can compensate for the loss of primitive innocence when all it does is destroy it with increasing rapacity. There is the idea that "this time is different" and civilization will magically save itself when every civilization, by its very operation, brings about its own collapse.

Does Schell think that the slightly less delusional democrats have a plan for countering the constant growth model of this civilization? That is delusional. Read more

You might consider that if a population is lied to often enough, it begins to distrust all historic sources of authority, and is easily preyed upon by charlatans.

Since you have focused on the lies of the right i will mention a few on the left. The government has been a prime source for many of these 'big lies'.The biggest, and the source of much of the rational anger on the right, has been the claim since the days of FDR and Johnson that we could finance the kind of entitlement system they created without massive taxes on the American middle class at some point. We have reached that point and the portion of the American populous who actually pay taxes have recognized the lie and are now in open revolt. The 'big lie' of the recent campaign, that we can finance our enormous future public liabilities , with a tax increase on the upper 1%, was as outrageous as any on the republican side.The rejection of science on the left is just as crazy as on the right, from 'vaccines cause autism' , to 'herbal upper colonics cure cancer', to 'all the strontium 90 found in the baby teeth of children must come from nuclear power plants', etc. If carbon from fossil fuel is causing global warming, then the rational answer is to tax fossil carbon and let market innovators figure out how to deal with it. Instead, Obama grants special subsidies to favored constituents while implying that this is somehow the answer, so that his favored 'middle class' need never pay a penny to save the planet.And the rest of the left wing blogosphere offers similar 'pain free' solutions (debt financed stimulus) to a market crash caused by middle class families buying homes they could not afford on credit.Any objective observer should be as shocked by the fantasies of the left as by those of the right.If not, one is simply another wild eyed partisan arguing with other partisans about whose fantasies are more unbelievable.Read more

Unfortunately not only the Republicans are living in fantasy land.The whole of the US and together with them the whole global world is still living in a fantasy of constant quantitative growth as the only possible way of living.All the other problems, facts mentioned in the article, including humanity's opposition to nature is part of the same package, and the solution has to also address this root cause.The bottom line is that while humanity is simply part of the vast, natural ecosystem around, humans live as if they were above the system and could do whatever they want, inventing their own systems, laws and principles.Even if we do not attribute the climate and weather changes directly to human effect, the economical and financial system based on the same attitude is already collapsing burying all of us underneath.The only solution is to find our way back to the natural system, recognizing and following its laws, adapting to the intricately interconnected and interdependent system.And in that respect all the present leaders, experts and the public alike has to change fundamentally. Let us hope that President Obama and his team, freed from the worries of re-election understands this. Read more

Mr. Schell is actually being a little kind to republicans. There are some from this party who sit in congress, both as representatives and senators, who believe in a 6000 year old earth, mock evolution and geology and pay no price in the media for these views. But the author is correct in his assessment that eventually they must pay the price for this wilful ignorance. But no their is nothing equivalent on the democratic side of the fence. Read more

Joschka Fischer
laments the fate of the European Union in the wake of the latest round of the Greek drama.

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